It has been one week since my first chemo treatment, and
this is the best I’ve felt in two months.
I’m not skipping down the halls or anything since I found taking a
midmorning nap in the library very necessary, but things are looking up. I no longer need to take extended breaks to lie
down in lab due to back pain caused by 5 minutes of minor bench work. I can walk around at ease instead of having
to sit down outside Qdoba to take a breather in the middle of my 4 block walk
to work. The best part is that my appetite
is back. I hit a new weight low last week
at 145 lbs, and I’m hoping to gain some back before I start chemo again in two
weeks. Waking up early for the blood
count to see when I could do chemo next and the disappointing results was a
large contributing factor to the nap.
My oncologist, Dr. Van Tine, was hoping I could start the
next round on Monday, but my white blood cell count was too low when they
checked this morning. I think he saw a
bit of disappointment in my face since he then half-jokingly mentioned I would
probably need a bone marrow transplant if we kept it at two weeks. Longer intermissions between chemo will mean
a longer treatment time course, but it might help me keep a little normalcy to
life. It also means I will be able to finish
out an experiment on Tuesday that I started this week, which I’m happy about as
well. (It’s been a little boring in lab
lately without any experiments in the works to provide ambiguous results).
Now that we’re updated, I wanted to explain a little about
my cancer. Ewing’s sarcoma is considered
a rare cancer and is a part of a larger group of cancers known (creatively) as
the Ewing family of tumors. According to
uncited statistics, I am 1 out of 250ish people that will be diagnosed with
this cancer this year. It is largely
considered a childhood cancer since most cases pop up during early adolescence. However, the different varieties of Ewing’s
can present themselves at various points in life.
Ewing’s sarcoma is a lot different than more the prevalent
breast, lung, colon, etc cancers out there.
There are no known risk factors or carcinogens like smoking or obesity
that cause Ewing’s. There are not any
genes that are passed down which would predispose me or anyone else for Ewing’s. It was a freak genetic mutation in one of my
cells (probably a bone cell). One chunk
of DNA (the EWS gene of chromosome 22) broke off and attached itself to another
chunk of DNA (the FLI1 gene of chromosome 11) to form a new fusion gene (the EWS/FLI
fusion gene). This cell then proceeded
to divide uninhibited by the usual constraints to form a tumor. Some of these cancerous cells then broke off
from the original tumor (probably in my ribs) to metastasize and find homes in
my vertebrae and pelvis. This is the
very simple version, but the sad thing is that we do know much about this new
gene, what it is specifically doing, or how to specifically treat it. So while
we wait for new research to come out, I’ll be having my cancer cells killed the
generic way of chemicals, radiation, and ice.
*I am putting up some pictures to liven up the blog. A few regular ones since my lab mates told me
the current format was depressing and a few scans since I think they are cool
to look at.
glad you are feeling better! the scans are cool to look at although except the one showing the lungs, I'm not sure what the tumors look like. are they the white spots?
ReplyDeletemany prayers are going your way! :)
Yes, the tumors are the big white spots. The top picture is a PET scan with my chest, vertebrae, and pelvic tumors lighting up. My brain, kidneys, and bladder also come up strongly. The middle picture is a MRI cross section of my chest tumor in white. The bottom is my 1st MRI where you can faintly see my chest tumor in the left side of the picture (my right since I am facing up in the picture).
ReplyDeleteGreg,
ReplyDeleteMy day is filled with prayer for you. I hope you don't mind that I shared your blog with the teacher staff and the parents of my students. All are praying and are impressed with your attitude. Hang in there. With love.
Glenn